Veritaserum
by EmeraldEyez1728
Summary: In which the wonders of potions bring people together. LJ oneshot


**A/N: Hey all, this is just one of my Lily James one shots. Take a look at my fic It All Happens for a Reason and enjoy this random thing. Plz read and review: **

**Veritaserum**

"You're going to do it wrong again, Potter!" Lily Evans scolded, her voice laced with frustration.

"What _now_!" James asked, equally exasperated, as Lily had been yelling at him all lesson.

"You're supposed to turn it counterclockwise, not clockwise." Lily said, pointing to the directions that Slughorn had written messily on the blackboard. James squinted his eyes and looked carefully at the board, scanning the instructions.

"Oh." James said after seeing the word 'counterclockwise' squeezed into the bottom right hand corner. "Er...Lily?" he said in a bashful, un-James-Potter fashion.

"Wha--oh my God!" Lily sighed at the helpless look at James' face. "To the left, Potter."

"Right-o." James said and obediently began stirring the potion. To the right. Again.

"Potter?"

"Evans?"

"What hand is your left hand?" Lily asked, innocently. James held up both of his hands and made an L while Lily stared at the sixteen year old sitting beside her in disbelief. James studied them for a minute and then selected his left hand.

"Very good, Potter, now can you stir the potion that way?"

"Eh?" James asked. He had been watching Sirius throw spitballs in Peter's potion. Sirius was in the process of insisting that it was the potion's 'secret ingredient', thus turning their potion neon orange. Sirius then turned his straw on Snape and amused himself for the rest of the lesson by aggravating him and having a few saliva-filled spitballs land into Snape's potion. This caused the potion to spark a little and start turning green. Snape hurried to fix it.

"Like this, Potter." Lily grabbed James' hand and guided it through the stirring process. James made a mental note to elaborate on this Lily-contact and brag to his marauders about it later.

"By now your potion should have turned a silvery color." Slughorn's voice rang out across the classroom. He was going from table to table, making approving looks at some who had managed to turn theirs a smoky gray and getting positively giddy when he saw one that was the described silver.

Lily was busy adding ingredients to the potion furiously, barely having time to look up at the directions. She surveyed the potion after a while. Their potion was not silver, but clear. If James hadn't put a few ingredients in there, he would have sworn it was water.

Slughorn was at Peter and Sirius' station now. "Ah, this by far has to be your best work, Black." Slughorn surveyed their potion which had miraculously turned a thin silver.

"Thank you very much, Sir." Sirius accepted the praise with no modesty. "It was very, _very_, easy Sir. I found it to be enjoyable."

Peter was too astonished to speak. James, however, knew what Sirius had done (having done it many times himself) and he looked over in the direction of Snape to see his reaction. Snape's mouth was hanging open as he looked between Sirius' cauldron and his own. He then went red in the face as comprehension clouded his eyes. Sirius performed a Switching spell and was now taking credit for Snape's work. Again.

"Severus, not quite up to scratch." Slughorn went over to critique Snape's potion. "If I were you, my boy, I'd consider remedial potions." Slughorn patted Snape on the head encouragingly, but immediately regretted doing so as he had to wipe his hand on his pant leg to rid it of the grease. Snape scowled.

"Ah and what is at Mr. Evans and Mr. Potter's station today?" Slughorn said jovially. Lily straightened up a bit and pushed the cauldron forward with a nervous smile. Slughorn surveyed it. He put on his glasses and picked up a spoonful of the liquid. Finally, his face broke into a smile.

"Can anyone tell me what we set out to make today?" Slughorn asked, the stupid smile still plastered on his face. Today had been a practical lesson. If everyone followed the instructions they should have been able to identify the potion that they ended up with. Lily, predictably raised her hand. "Yes, Lily m'dear?"

"Veritaserum." Lily said knowingly.

"And what does Veritaserum do, Lily?"

"It's a truth serum. The particular assignment that you gave us determined that it was the strongest type. It's one of the most complicated potions along with Felix Felicis. A drop of this potion would make you spill your darkest secrets, worst fears, anything really." Lily said as though she'd just swallowed the text book.

"Excellent response. Yes, this was Veritaserum. Now, Mr. Potter, Miss Evans, would either of you like to test your specimen here?" Slughorn asked as though he was offering them a treat. Lily shrank in her seat. James looked over at her and realized that she was most unwilling to do it. He ran his hands through his hair and took a deep breath. He wasn't that crazy about spilling his darkest secrets to the class, but then again if one of them had to, he would rather it was him than Lily.

"I'll do it, Professor." James voulenteered.

"Wonderful, James m'boy. Now, you just come up to that stool in front of the class and I'll get the appropriate dosage...shouldn't be more than a teaspoon." Slughorn proceeded to measure out the dosage of Veritaserum as James got out of his seat. Lily watched him, a mixture of curiosity, gratitude and awe was shown on her face. James flashed her a smile and walked to the stool on the classroom leaving her dumbstruck at his stupidity or bravery--or both.

"Alright then, James, open up, here comes the choo choo!" Slughorn spoon fed James the Veritaserum. James rolled his eyes, but his face grew expressionless as he swallowed.

"Alright. Now then, what's your full name?"

"James Tristan Potter." James answered, toneless.

"How old are you?"

"16 years, Sluggy." James answered again.

"Good, now it seems like the Veritaserum is working, but one can never be quite sure. Those are the easy questions, now let's go for the hard ones."

"Alrighty then, sir." James answered.

"Okay, James Tristan Potter, what were you doing last night?"

"I was at the Astronomy Tower." James answered.

"Did you have company?"

"No, Professor, I was alone."

"What were you doing, then?"

"I was thinking about the company I would have liked to have up there with me."

"Oho. Who then?"

"Lily Evans." James answered, without the slightest hint of shame. Lily blushed.

"Ah, Miss Evans. Well, what would you two have done up there?" Slughorn asked with a quirked eyebrow. Lily glowered at Slughorn, feeling that not only was this a complete invasion of privacy, but this was a little perverted to ask. Thankfully James kept the response clean.

"Just talk."

"About what?"

"Anything. Everything. Lily doesn't give me the chance to talk to her. I think it'd be nice if we would once in a while. You see, we normally just shout at each other at some stupid thing that I've recently done."

"Why won't she give you a chance?" Slughorn proceeded to invade James' privacy, but Lily sat up straighter wondering what the response to this would be.

"Well, I've asked myself that question many times, Professor, and I've come to the conclusion that she thinks I'm a prick."

"You seem perfectly respectable to me, James."

"Well, I suppose I've been a prick in the past. But if she just talked to me...if she just listened to me I...I wish I could show her that I changed, sir." James sighed and monotonously ruffled his hair.

"How did you change?" This time it was not Slughorn who did the questioning. It was Lily.

"I just...I have. I've stopped playing pranks, I'm not into most of the things that I was into. I'm more responsible. I've--"

"grown up." Lily finished for him. She got out of her seat and walked toward him as if in a trance, not caring that everyone was watching her.

"Yeah. I did it for you, you know." James said, still monotonously.

"Yeah, I guess you have." Lily said in a whisper. She knelt down in front of James and searched his face. His eyes looked into hers and she couldn't stop staring.

"I don't want to go through life knowing that you never believed me. I just wanted you to know the truth." James said. Lily knew that if he was not under the influence of Veritaserum, he would have probably said these things anyway if she'd ever given him the chance to really talk to her. "I've said everything I need to I think. Professor," he turned to Slughorn "may I have the antidote?"

"Certainly my boy." Slughorn said, his voice also softer. Slughorn left the room to the back and get the antidote.

"I don't think I can do anything else for you, Lily. I've changed for you and I've shown you how I have. You know, Lily, people say that you fall for one person and you pray to God that they'll catch you. Well I've fallen for you and I've fallen hard. I don't think that I could stop it because every time I see you, I know that you are the one person that I'll never stop falling for regardless of whether or not you catch me. I love you, Lily Evans. And I swear to God, that's the truth." James said.

Lily took both of James' hands in her own and stood him up. She pulled him into a deep kiss and the class erupted into applause and wolf whistles. When she pulled away she whispered, "Consider yourself caught."

-----  
"Well done, Sluggy." Sirius shook hands with Slughorn as he watched his best friend walk off hand in hand with Lily. "Perfect lesson."

"Well your original suggestion was illegal, Mr. Black. I'm afraid love potions are banned in Hogwarts, but I figured this was the next best thing." Slughorn said with satisfaction.

"Yeah. At least this is genuine love." Sirius said. "Thanks for all your help."

"Let's just hope it lasts." Slughorn said with a nod.

"Oh it will. There's nothing deeper than that." Sirius said confidently. "You watch, Slughorn, he's gonna marry her. And they'll be happy together for the rest of their lives. And that's the truth."


End file.
